v0.6_241013

This is the fourth preview release (Beta 2) of DISMTools 0.6, with new features and enhancements:

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	F1DFAD94632D983FD39FE2CFFD29FAEAAC35A937AC3E546FD8F5A8B44C48384B
Portable	DISMTools.zip	B3516E6CFD8EB712E373111CBF3B7303A1B6E8A77F0633EE4809CC1F75842813

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where the program would continue running without having .NET Framework 4.8
• Fixed an issue where the program would randomly freeze, even though it was still responding

New features

• Exception reporting now includes some basic information about the image you are servicing. This does not occur when managing active installations
• A new tool has been introduced that lets you manage the registry hives of the image:

Note

When closing this manager, all registry hives loaded will be unloaded. Make sure you make the necessary registry changes before unloading the hives. Also, when unloading the hives, all changes to a hive will be saved

• You can now download Windows 11 Languages and Optional Features ISOs more easily:

Note

Support for the Windows 10 ISO counterparts will be added in a future version

Preinstallation Environment Helper

• Output of OSCDIMG has been improved for the Extensibility Suite
• CODE: the indentation of the PE Helper is now consistent

Image information reports

• HTML versions of Markdown reports now force UTF-8 encoding
• Fixed an issue where external links would be opened in the HTML report preview browser

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.6 Preview 4 (Beta 2) by @CodingWonders in #175

Full Changelog: v0.6_pre_2493...v0.6_pre_24101

v0.5.1 Update 1

This is an update to DISMTools 0.5.1, with bugfixes and enhancements from preview releases of version 0.6:

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	DAFF8E4152ADB09F713C72AA19FA0B084A6C31E5765CC775B4CBB8D3A6D9FE0F
Portable	DISMTools.zip	93211B6573A862BBD4ACCAB21CC25F8A20CF485AAC87DDF8FF0BB9593787360C

Changes

Preinstallation Environment Helper

• You can now press B on the partition selection screen to go back to the disk selection screen if you chose the wrong disk
• The Operating System installer now shows a cleaner progress output for DiskPart and DISM:

• Compatibility with PowerShell 7 has been improved
• Output for CopyPE and OSCDIMG is now shown more cleanly
• The Windows PE image is now mounted to the %TEMP% ($env:TEMP) folder
• A custom title is now used for both the PE generator and the OS installer
• PowerShell is now called without loading any existing profiles in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell, to speed up script launch

Image information reports

• Preposterous dates are now classified as such when getting information about packages

Unattended answer file features

• The unattended answer file creation wizard can now be resized
• For fully unattended installations (including setup), unattended answer files are now named autounattend
• Exit codes for the unattended answer file generator are now shown in Hex
• Fixed some XML writer issues for the UnattendGen parser (thanks David Retzloff on the MDL forums for spotting)
• After you have created your unattended answer file using the wizard, you can now open it in the Windows System Image Manager (SIM), or load it in the Editor mode

Note

The program will detect the presence of the Windows SIM. If it is not detected in its standard location, the action will be disabled. The Windows SIM is installed alongside the deployment tools, from the Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK)

Miscellaneous

• The link to report program exceptions has changed to point to its new issue template (#160)
• Validating images for Trusted Desktop when applying them now requires Windows PE 4.0 or later
• The image application task and the image file information dialog are more reliable
• Fixed an issue where all images would be remounted, but the first mounted image would never be shown in the automatic reload panel
• Fixed a parser issue in the App Installer downloader
• Added feature update detection for Selenium builds of Windows
• Fixed an issue where the mounted image list in the mounted image manager would not be cleared if an external program had unmounted all images
• The exception dialog has seen a major redesign to show more information and feature details on how to report problems. Program version reporting is now included as well
• Fixed an issue where clicking the "Access directory" option of the "Mount directory" tree view item would always load the project's mount directory, even if the image was mounted elsewhere (thanks @Procstas for spotting)
• Fixed attribute filter issues for AppX package directories when they are dropped

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.5.1 Update 1 by @CodingWonders in #170

Full Changelog: v0.5.1_stable...v0.5.1_upd1

v0.6_240929

This is the third preview release of DISMTools 0.6, with new features and enhancements:

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	F1DFAD94632D983FD39FE2CFFD29FAEAAC35A937AC3E546FD8F5A8B44C48384B
Portable	DISMTools.zip	B3516E6CFD8EB712E373111CBF3B7303A1B6E8A77F0633EE4809CC1F75842813

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue that happened when adding and removing capabilities where capability display names would be misclassified as capability identities

New features

• The testing environment portion of the Preinstallation Environment Helper is now loaded without loading profiles
• If the program is configured to use the system color mode, the changes to these will now be handled much more smoothly and automatically

Unattended answer file features

• The unattended answer file manager and the application task have received translations
• You can now specify placeholders of the system components to add to your unattended answer file

Note

• The link at the bottom of the page will open the system component reference from Microsoft online documentation
• You will have to fill in the details for the components and passes you configure
• To continue creating your unattended answer file without configuring additional components, skip this page

• UnattendGen has been updated to the latest version, which adds support for components and passes
• After you have created your unattended answer file using the wizard, you can now open it in the Windows System Image Manager (SIM), or load it in the Editor mode to fill in placeholder passes

Note

The program will detect the presence of the Windows SIM. If it is not detected in its standard location, the action will be disabled. The Windows SIM is installed alongside the deployment tools, from the Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK)

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.6 Preview 3 by @CodingWonders in #171

Full Changelog: v0.6_pre_2492...v0.6_pre_2493

v0.6_240915

This is the second preview release (Beta 1) of DISMTools 0.6, with new features and enhancements:

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	276E899B6139C838ACDBE6996A39D94820C4B28A5803937781D98F46780F1525
Portable	DISMTools.zip	9E67BA91D0D4C707F3227BA39B9C64985F49808C6EBE3305E981D96488EAF542

Bugfixes

• The image application task and the image file information dialog are more reliable
• Fixed an issue where all images would be remounted, but the first mounted image would never show in the automatic reload panel
• Fixed an issue where the mounted image list in the mounted image manager would not be cleared if all images were unmounted by an external program
• Fixed an issue where clicking the "Access directory" option of the "Mount directory" tree view item would always load the project's mount directory, even if the image was mounted elsewhere (thanks @Procstas for spotting)
• Fixed a parser issue in the App Installer downloader
• Fixed attribute filter issues for AppX package directories when they are dropped

New features

• A requirement for Windows PE 4.0 (based on Windows 8) and newer images has been added for the image application task if you want to validate a Windows image for Trusted Desktop:

• You can now filter features and capabilities based on their state:

Tip

• You can filter features using values like enabled, disabled, enablepending, or disablepending
• You can filter capabilities using values like installed, notpresent, or installpending

• Added feature update detection for Selenium builds of Windows
• The exception dialog has seen a major redesign to show more information and feature more information on how to report problems. Program version reporting is now included as well

Preinstallation Environment Helper

• Compatibility with PowerShell based on the new, open-source .NET (e.g., PowerShell 7) has been improved
• Output for CopyPE and OSCDIMG is now shown more cleanly
• To avoid bloating the program directory, the Windows PE image is now mounted to the %TEMP% ($env:TEMP) folder
• A custom title is now used for both the PE generator and the OS installer
• PowerShell is now called without loading any existing profiles in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1, to speed up script launch

Image information saver technologies

• If a package contains preposterous dates, reports will now show such a mark
• The program now uses Markdig to convert the Markdown report to HTML. With this change, printing support has been re-instated

Note

Printed copies may not look correct due to the width of the tables. Setting paper orientation to landscape can help fix the look

Unattended answer file features

• For fully unattended installations (including setup), unattended answer files are now named autounattend
• Panels in the disk configuration, user accounts, and wireless configuration pages are now properly resized when you resize the window
• Exit codes for the unattended answer file generator (UnattendGen) are now shown in Hex
• Fixed some XML writer issues for the UnattendGen parser (thanks David Retzloff on the MDL forums for spotting)

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.6 Preview 2 by @CodingWonders in #167

Full Changelog: v0.6_pre_2491...v0.6_pre_2492

v0.6_240901

This is the first preview release of DISMTools 0.6, with new features and enhancements:

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	CE6C975F60F4C24044A971ED2637AF84C803E8DBBE14FB1AB9E0834FF026EA15
Portable	DISMTools.zip	99193E51AF3A577004AD172401B78E4D968E4E774820089303A63E7EA25D57E9

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where some properties for image information reports were not obtained

New features

• The Preinstallation Environment Helper has had some improvements:
  • You can now press B on the partition selection screen to go back to the disk selection screen if you chose the wrong disk
  • The Operating System installer now shows a cleaner progress output for DiskPart and DISM:

• The unattended answer file creation wizard can now be resized
• UnattendGen has been updated to the latest version. Check out its release notes
• The link to report program exceptions has changed to point to its new issue template (#160)

Revamped image information report features

• Image information reports are now saved in Markdown. Here is an example:

Note

Printing support has currently been disabled due to the Markdown format. It will be reintroduced in a future preview release

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.6 Preview 1 by @CodingWonders in #163

Full Changelog: v0.5.1_pre_2482...v0.6_pre_2491

v0.5.1

DISMTools 0.5.1 is now available as a stable release, with new features and enhancements:

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	49A97C07CCFBD72AB81237B6817C584413CD936A33C26B0D350F3926EB898E68
Portable	DISMTools.zip	8247BEABAF2DD63020AF467E0C01607ED041B4948BB68D0D8C96649C23C2E816

Changes made since last preview

Bugfixes

• Fixed some visual issues in the unattended answer file creation wizard

New features

• Downloading the self-contained version of the unattended answer file generator program now happens in a separate thread. After downloading, you will also see a notification in your system tray:

• 7-Zip has been updated to version 24.08
• A confirmation dialog has been added to the ISO creation dialog that makes sure you have saved your changes to your image

Overall changes

Bugfixes

Note

This will show the bugfixes of all preview versions. To view them, expand a section

Preview 2

• The reliability of AppX background processes has been improved

Preview 3

• The Preinstallation Environment (PE) Helper now checks if there are Windows images present in your ISOs and will exit if none are detected

Preview 4

• Fixed an issue where detecting keyboard layered drivers would fail when managing active installations
• Video tutorial detection has been moved to a separate thread, avoiding UI deadlocks on slow wireless network connections (#151, thanks @vadimlitvinenko87 for spotting)
• Fixed an issue in the capability information dialog where it would show feature state (as opposed to capability state) when searching items

New features

• The Preinstallation Environment (PE) Helper has had several improvements:
  • A new tool has been added: the Driver Installation Module (DIM), which assists you in installing device drivers on active Windows PEs. These drivers are then added to the target image

    

  • Now, you can create testing environments in which you can test your applications for Windows PE compatibility and with which you can make further customizations to the Preinstallation Environment if need be

    

• Italian translations have been added
• If the Windows ADK is installed, but the AdkInstallation registry value is not present, the program can add it automatically:

• CODE: MSU package addition has been simplified
• If an operation completes with errors, the program will now show a description of the error, in the system language, from the Windows APIs instead of a generic string

• Stub package options can now be set for AppX packages that are added

Note

Stub package preferences can only be set if the following criteria are met:

• The target image contains Windows 10 or a newer operating system and is serviced by DISM from Windows 10 or newer, and
• The application that is added is a bundle package (.appxbundle, .msixbundle) and contains stub packages

Otherwise, stub package preferences are unable to be set and the application will be added normally

• You can now add packages by specifying Microsoft Update Manifest (MUM) files (thanks @AnubyteCode for suggesting this)
• The Scintilla.NET component has been updated to version 5.6.1
• You can now list the contents of any Windows image with the new Windows Image Explorer:

Note

The Windows Image Explorer is not tied to DISMTools and can be used separately. This means that the development processes of both tools are independent. Because of this, DISMTools does not include this tool by default and will download it

You can check out the Windows Image Explorer here

• You can now set keyboard layered drivers on your Windows image, which are useful for Japanese and Korean keyboards

Note

You can access this new task at "Commands -> Languages and regional settings -> Set layered driver..."

• The unattended answer file features have been revamped, using the Unattended Answer File Generator from Christoph Schneegans (@cschneegans) as their new base

• DockPanelSuite has been updated to version 3.1.1

v0.5.1_240818

This is the fourth and final preview release of DISMTools 0.5.1, with new features and enhancements

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	ABB77EA38981AE8092A2715E0EF396B5775D716FA795FABCEC567128756635A4
Portable	DISMTools.zip	54EABF82E02007689F55A9B878110B16CF522E401D56291682023E92A8819DC9

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where detecting keyboard layered drivers would fail when managing active installations
• Video tutorial detection has been moved to a separate thread, avoiding UI deadlocks on slow wireless network connections (#151, thanks @vadimlitvinenko87 for spotting)
• Fixed an issue in the capability information dialog where it would show feature state (as opposed to capability state) when searching items

New features

• DockPanelSuite has been upgraded to version 3.1.1

Revamped unattended answer file features

• Updated wireless authentication terminology for WPA3-SAE
• You can now create unattended answer files, with the inclusion of UnattendGen

Note

UnattendGen requires .NET 8 to function. DISMTools will detect the presence of said runtime; if it's not detected, you can download the self-contained version.

Downloading the self-contained version does not occur in a separate thread, so the program will temporarily freeze until the self-contained version has been downloaded and installed. This will change for the release version of DISMTools 0.5.1.

After the self-contained version has been installed, DISMTools will use it until it has been deleted.

Missing runtime dialog

• The program now includes a revamped answer file manager and a new application task:

• When creating ISO files, you can now specify your unattended answer files. These will be copied to the ISO file and the Preinstallation Environment Helper will apply the answer file for you

• New DISMTools projects now contain a simpler structure for unattended answer files. Your existing projects will not change

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.5.1 Preview 4 by @CodingWonders in #152

Full Changelog: v0.5.1_pre_2481...v0.5.1_pre_2482

v0.5.1_240804

This is the third preview release of DISMTools 0.5.1, with new features and enhancements

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	855F1456F2DAB4A556D9298FCCF484EA5746ADF0228ED7035D475A638D70094E
Portable	DISMTools.zip	492485A8DE9E1C996A14021D21494579C426F695153CDE0221A64E1AA55432FA

Bugfixes

• The Preinstallation Environment (PE) Helper now checks if there are Windows images present in your ISOs and will exit if none are detected

New features

• You can now set keyboard layered drivers on your Windows image, which are useful for Japanese and Korean keyboards

Note

You can access this new task at "Commands -> Languages and regional settings -> Set layered driver..."

• The unattended answer file features have started undergoing a major reconstruction, using the Unattended Answer File Generator from Christoph Schneegans (@cschneegans) as their new base

Important

This is IN EXPERIMENTAL STAGES and is not complete (only the wizard steps have been implemented and the generator program is in its infancy). This will continue to be worked on as development goes on. You will see a link at the bottom of the window that points to Schneegans' generator

• The Scintilla.NET library has been updated to version 5.6.1

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.5.1 Preview 3 by @CodingWonders in #149

Full Changelog: v0.5.1_pre_2472...v0.5.1_pre_2481

v0.5 Update 1

This is the July 2024 Update of DISMTools 0.5, with enhancements that have been backported from preview releases of DISMTools 0.5.1

Scroll down to the bottom (after reading the changelogs) for a surprise.

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	7CBE88876FDDB223FC1E5B453BE41C1336473B4357970D437A67EA98BA959C30
Portable	DISMTools.zip	0AF31C8C3E8A303605D45FE1A6F183E0B31CB3FD89DE3CF87F3DFBA9BC09AF37

Changes:

• The Driver Installation Module (DIM) is now available in the Preinstallation Environments that you create with the ISO creation tools:

Note

You are free to use the Driver Installation Module on any Preinstallation Environment, but full integration is assured with the DISMTools Preinstallation Environment, which will add the drivers you had specified using this utility to the target image. Also, note that the DIM currently supports x86 and amd64 targets

• The program can now detect possible ADKs installed on your system that can't be easily detected with the registry and will perform the fixes necessary (if you so choose)
• The following components have been updated:
  • 7-Zip: 24.06 ==> 24.07
  • Scintilla.NET: 5.5.1 ==> 5.6.0
• If the program can't get an appropriate description of the error code, it will try to grab it, in the system language, from the Windows APIs; instead of showing a generic message telling you to look for the error codes online
• CODE: The logic for adding MSU packages has been simplified
• The reliability of AppX background processes has improved
• You can now list the contents of Windows images with the new Windows Image Explorer:

Note

The Windows Image Explorer is not tied to DISMTools and can be used separately. This means that the development processes of both tools are independent. Because of this, DISMTools does not include this tool by default and will download it.

You can download its first release here. You can also check out the Windows Image Explorer repository here

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.5 Update 1 by @CodingWonders in #145

Full Changelog: v0.5_stable...v0.5_upd1

Thank you!

To finish this content, I would like to thank you for supporting this project, downloading new releases, testing them, and reporting feedback to make it a good product during these 2 years. Otherwise, don't feel excluded if you are new to this program. I thank you as well.

I'm now looking forward to year 3 of this program.

v0.5.1_240721

This is the second preview (Beta) release of DISMTools 0.5.1, with new features and enhancements:

This version was released because (1) it had to, and (2) it compensates for the recent issues with the CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor (this hobbyist project is more tested than an enterprise solution trusted by millions, go figure)

File hashes

File	Name	Hash (SHA256)
Installer	dt_setup.exe	C240AD165E0B179C53C2B3B42669D89244135E173F3DD5C3BF82CF2B7656AB8F
Portable	DISMTools.zip	6271FB0C5DF568254BB8CC229229C4A1073A0F59489475C8EE40B6FCD0F0EA9C

Bugfixes

• The reliability of AppX background processes has been improved

New features

• Stub package options can now be set for AppX packages that are added

Note

Stub package preferences can only be set if the following criteria are met:

• The target image contains Windows 10 or a newer operating system and is serviced by DISM from Windows 10 or newer, and
• The application that is added is a bundle package (.appxbundle, .msixbundle) and contains stub packages

Otherwise, stub package preferences are unable to be set and the application will be added normally

• You can now add packages by specifying Microsoft Update Manifest (MUM) files (thanks @AnubyteCode for suggesting this)
• The PE Helper Extensibility Suite has had some improvements:
  • An application folder is now included to which you can copy your third-party apps
  • The ISO generation script now copies your apps to the ISO content root before creating the disc image
• The Scintilla.NET component has been updated to version 5.6.0
• You can now list the contents of any Windows image with the new Windows Image Explorer:

Note

The Windows Image Explorer is not tied to DISMTools and can be used separately. This means that the development processes of both tools are independent. Because of this, DISMTools does not include this tool by default and will download it

You can check out the Windows Image Explorer here

What's Changed

• DISMTools 0.5.1 Preview 2 by @CodingWonders in #143

Full Changelog: v0.5.1_pre_2471...v0.5.1_pre_2472